The Hastur Cycle

22/03/2014

Following on from my recent book acquisitions of The King In Yellow related stories, I dug out my coy of The Hastur Cycle. This book is a collection of stories on Hastur, The King In Yellow and Carcosa. it’s part of a series of books Chaosium produce in support of their Call of Cthulhu RPG, mostly edited by Robert M Price.

Entitled as: Tales that Created and Defined Dread Hastur, the King in Yellow, Nighted Yuggoth, and Dire Carcosa”, it has the key stories written by H P Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Robert W Chambers et al.

The material varies in style, with so many authors including Arthur Machen and Ramsey Campbell, and include poems and play scripts as well as more conventional short stories. Karl Wagner’s “The River of Night’s Dreaming” will make you think twice when watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show…

Essential reading, and the stories are in a sequence charting the development of the mythology behind Hastur and the King In Yellow, and even includes James Blish’s stab (at insanity) at writing the play of The King In Yellow in “More Light”.